Sobbing girl floats 800m to sea
A young girl had the scare of her life after she was blown out 800m to sea.
The eight-year-old child had to be tearfully rescued by a speedboat after she had floated away, due to offshore wind on a beach in Rhyl, Wales.
The dramatic moment she was rescued was caught on camera, with the sobbing girl seen clinging to safety once they approached her.
She had been having a day under the sun with family, with her dinghy connected by a rope to a family member before it was accidentally released.
The UK’s Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI), a lifeboat search and rescue charity were thankfully up to the mission to grab the youngster.
Video of the child’s rescue was made public.
“It was very lucky that the crew was in the area, attending another call, we they were very quickly on the scene,” Rhyl Lifeboat Station press officer Paul Frost said.
One of the crew could be heard yelling to the girl, “Are you OK, are you alright?”
The eight-year-old’s heartbreaking screams could be heard through the footage, along with pleas to “get out” of the dinghy.
Mr Frost said that although the sea wasn’t rough, there was an offshore breeze “so the dinghy was quickly being blown out to sea.
“The crew was only about two minutes away at the time (of the emergency call),” he said.
“She had drifted about half a mile off shore.
“But she did the right thing by staying in the dinghy, and not trying to swim to shore.
“She was crying when the crew found her, and they took her back to shore to her family. No medical help was needed – she was just a little bit shaken.
“Her family explained that the dinghy was attached to a line, but they let it go and within seconds it had drifted away.”